HiFiMAN HE400i Over Ear Full-Size Plannar Magnetic Headphone

Product Information

Have a Bellari HA-540 Class A tube amp with 12AX7 tubes; Tung-Sol ECC803S gold, Ruby, Sovtek and the HE-400i, Beyer DT-770 Pro, Audio-Technnica ATH-ESW9 and Senns 800 cans. But the sexy cups tend to be a fingerprint magnet, they don’t give me much confidence in terms of being scratch resistant. Shove some good power through the 400i and enjoy the good head massage these planar drivers can produce. adapter is crap though, had connection issues so I threw it to the bin (having another 5 laying around).

HiFiMAN HE-400i planar magnetic headphones - The Absolute Sound

This was my first open-back headphones which I have actually owned (have tried some before) and the soundstage and imaging was exceptional. The BUDA sounds a bit colored with the HE-400i having too much bass and not enough detail in the upper treble. Lower midrange really depends on the source used and if the right power is supplied, this is the most noticeable part when plugged unamped and amped, it sounds thin and dry when unamped whilst it sounds lush and has good body when amped. With Steve Guttenberg's volume maxed out on his iPod Classic, the HE-400i was also barely loud enough. If you have a really good DAC and amp, and a good source with good recordings, most 50 Euro headphones should play them very well.But as some top cans have even more midrange creaminess (LCD-2), glamour ( Oppo PM1) or bloom ( HE-6) while maintaining midrange transparency on par or even slightly better than HE-400i, I decided not to give here 10/10, but 9/10. It appears to be an attempt to make it more portable, but the headphones themselves are so large it is unlikely that anyone is going to wear these away from their home rig. My home rig is quite modest, I use HE-400i with a laptop and Audioengine D1 as a DAC/head amp or with my iBasso DX90 player.

HiFiMAN HE-400i - Reviews - Head-Fi.org HiFiMAN HE-400i - Reviews - Head-Fi.org

I reversed the tilt placing the thickest part of the pads to the front and thus the thinnest at the back. It's too extended, causing things like cymbals to sound too distant from the rest of the record (think one floor above). Based on measurements, the HD598 should sound significantly brighter than the planars, and since the 598 has a huge spike in the impedance around 90 hz, the planars should have much better bass. Please bear in mind all grades (used for both sound and non sound related aspects) are based on my subjective opinions.The gold not only adds a bit of design flair, but it also enhances long-term electrical performance since gold connectors never corrode. HIFIMAN has been one if not the best headphone maker out there, they specialized in producing headphones with unconventional drivers, they used Planar Magnetic drivers as the owner, Dr. Perhaps it is because of a small soundstage or a lack of layering, I'm not sure, that contributes to certain sounds often being "drowned out. Of course I took into consideration HD 650 even HD 700, but the dac/amp requirements are too high for me.

HIFIMAN HE400i Ver.2020 - Reviews - Head-Fi.org

On songs by Lindsey Stirling (Transcendence or Electric Daisy) the bass creates such a pleasant sound I start to question reality.

Making custom cables for the 400S is a whole lot easier than trying to mess with the adapters like I have made. To me this was an absolute must because the default angle for the pads made listening too fatiguing because the angle was too direct for my ears. Sure the bass body isn’t as big and the volume is maxed out but I could enjoy this if I had no other choice.